


if it were safer on the ground we wouldn't be on a boat (yeah, you should be loving someone)

by orphan_account



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:12:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6219586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i have fallen prey to the greatness that is lexark as a coping mechanism and wishful thinking (please love me)</p><p>in which elyza lex is professional and clinical when it comes to zombies, and a mess in pretty much everything else; and alicia clark remains a beaming hope for teen angst and snark amidst a world that is truly messy</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

She’s rushing through the contents of a medical cabinet when there’s a thud outside the door, like a body being dropped.  _ Shit _ . Alicia’s breath freezes in her throat. Another thud. A grunt. Heavy breathing. Footsteps. She’s stuck, still, as someone - some _ thing _ approaches her.

 

Cold metal presses hard into her neck. Something clicks, metallic and unforgiving, and Alicia closes her eyes, breathes in, prepares herself for whatever comes next.

 

_ At least it’s not one of them _ , she thinks.  _ An infected. Walker.  _

**_Zombie_ ** , part of her mind whispers. She forces it down.

_ Matt _ . She lets the blackness of her own eyelids envelop her.

The silence remains, other than the sounds of someone breathing behind her. She wishes they’d get it over with, already - the world’s shit enough already without kidnapping and torture involved, isn’t it?

 

“Is that a gun, or are you just excited to see me?” She snarks after a pause too pregnant to be normal. Nothing is, though, in this world. She opens her eyes, and the sliver of mirror available to her reflects half a head of blonde hair (too greasy to be considered nice, but still) and eyes of a piercing blue, carrying a sort of internal conflict she can’t decipher. Probably mercy against the safety of solitude.

Alicia hasn’t seen anyone so confident with a gun in hand since the soldiers.

 

Adrenaline sizzles in her veins, and without it, she’s sure her knees would be shaking.

 

The stranger’s tongue darts out, but Alicia can’t read the section of face visible to her.

 

“Dangerous place for a girl like you to be running around alone.” Her voice carries an unfamiliar twang to it - sharper on its vowels, husky and raspy in a way that sends a jolt of surprise from Alicia’s brain downwards. The fuzz it settles in her toes is  _ irritating _ , she decides.

 

“Please,” She drawls, hands curling around the bottle of pills she’d been reaching for not even a minute earlier, “Point me in the direction of  _ safety _ , because from what I’ve seen, it’s in a sharp goddamn decline.” 

_ Great _ \- if she hadn’t already been marked for death, she’d certainly fixed that now. But then the stranger huffs with laughter, the cold-burn pressure of the gun’s barrel is gone from her neck, and Alicia is forced to clutch the sink with her free hand to keep from falling over. The pills rattle in her grip.

 

She turns, and takes in her assailant. Unwashed blonde hair; eyes ringed by bags and bruises that shouldn’t compliment the sky-blue of them but do anyways, carelessly and recklessly; a strong, squareish-jaw; the grime and blood that streak down her otherwise unmarked face. Alicia’s grip slips a little on the sink, but she doesn’t say a word as she straightens herself, legs now trustworthy again, somehow.

 

“Sweetheart, if you’re looking for safety, search no further. I’m right here.”

Alicia scoffs and rolls her eyes. The stranger grins, and its lopsided.

 

It’s been a while since Alicia’s seen a smile so untethered, so genuine, so free from the weight of the world.

 

She wonders about the girl, about the comfortable way the gun sits in the waistband of her jeans (accompanied by several knives, Alicia doesn’t fail to notice, and she wouldn’t be surprised if there was a sword hidden somewhere, too, as impossible as that would be given that she’s a few inches shorter than the brunette girl herself and-

 

“You keep staring at me like that and I’m going to start thinking you want a little more than safety from me.”

Alicia flares red, and narrows her eyes at the girl. “What I want is to get as much useful shit from this house as I can, and move on. I have a fa- I have people waiting for me.”

The blonde’s eyebrows shoot up. “Didn’t peg you for a thief.”

“Didn’t peg you for a conversationalist. Don’t you have something to go shoot?”

 

Alicia feels a surge of pride as the stranger seems to stumble over her words for the first time.

 

“They like loud noises. Knives are more effective.” It should make Alicia ill. In the twilit bathroom, the world void of monsters for these few minutes, it doesn’t.

Silence takes over, and there’s no telltale shuffling, and the brunette relaxes, just a little, just for a second.

 

“Alicia.” She holds out her hand to the girl.

“Elyza.” The blonde’s hand is callused as it wraps around Alicia’s smoother, softer one. She wonders how long it will take hers to pick up that kind of weariness.

“My mom’s probably found food, by now. And I should get these back,” She shakes the pills. “Travis - my stepdad - needs stitches. Anything to ease the pain.”

Elyza nods.

 

Pregnant pause.

 

“Need protection? It’s a big, scary world out there, and like you said - I’m the one with a gun.”

It’s Alicia’s turn to laugh, then. “If you’re that desperate for a meal, blondie, you should just ask.”


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s summer, and it’s far too hot, and they’re going in circles, and Alicia Clark is still a teenager, but still everyone seems to forget that, somehow.

Hammers don’t come cleanly out of half-rotten skulls. Even after all she’s seen and all she’s been through, Alicia still has to turn aside and retch up the granola bar breakfast she’d enjoyed so briefly at the _squelch-crack-rip-thud_ as she tears her makeshift weapon clear of the almost-human’s head.

The stench of bile mingles with that of sweet, cloying, rotting flesh and metallic, pervasive, unforgiving blood.

 

It’s summer, and it’s hot, and they’re headed west - or maybe north, now, Alicia doesn’t follow - and she’s curling in on herself and crying, shaking, each set of sobs tearing through her with unforgiving violence, her throat raw and burning, her ribs aching, eyes swollen and stinging. She’s exhausted and tense and strung out and terrified, and she wishes that the floor could swallow her and strip the anguish and death that cling so carelessly to her bones and consume her, bit by bit, a little more every day.

It’s summer, and it’s hot, and Elyza clears the house of walkers with a level of ease and grace that belongs only to her - that is natural to this hellish reality, that Alicia envies and marvels over. She whispers something no one else has ever heard over every single one of the bodies, just like she always does, but the panther-like grace and coolness disappears as she crouches beside Alicia’s still shaking form. She’s warm as she coaxes the hammer from the teen’s grip and casts it aside, brain matter still clinging to the head, and as she rubs her hands over the girl’s knees, to her waist, over her back, calming, waiting.

 

Elyza cleans the blood and gore from both of their bodies and her multitude of knives, and gathers up the supplies in the house on her own. Alicia sits on a couch that smells of must and mold and puts the pieces of herself back together. She doesn’t ask why Elyza went to the lengths of building a fire strong enough to boil water when the blonde pushes a mug of green tea into her hands. She drinks, and washes away the taste of vomit that’s coating her tongue, and Elyza talks - histories of her that sound like fictions in their new world, like wishful thinking, like fantasies of a better land.

They sit, Elyza talks until her voice is raw, and Alicia feels the mug turn cold in her hands, but holds onto it anyways. Letting go would mean moving on. Letting go would mean returning to her family and the outside and the anthropomorphic demons that haunt every minute of her life.  


Elyza stares as Alicia forces rusted, bent nails into the head of a baseball bat and ties it to her backpack. They meet eyes, but the Australian just swallows and nods. The bastardized morningstar dangles awkward and out of place against the pale pink of Alicia’s jacket, but somehow, Elyza thinks, it suits her.

It’s summer, and it’s far too hot, and they’re going in circles, and Alicia Clark is still a teenager, but still everyone seems to forget that, somehow.

 

* * *

 

Alicia’s thighs stick to the leather of the motorcycle seat and she leans backwards, basking in the warmth and the sun and how easy it is to forget the world. She breathes in, out, and opens a lazy eye to peer curiously at her companion. Elyza stares right back, and arches an eyebrow. Alicia’s never been one to back down.

The sun beats down on her exposed stomach, plaid shirt hanging loose off her shoulders. Smoke curls from the end of a cigarette. Elyza returns the stick to her lips and drags in the toxins.

 

 _Actively taking part in the growth of cancer cells in your body isn’t_ **_hot_ ** , Alicia reminds herself.

It’d be a better way to go than most, nowadays.

 

She licks her lips, and peels herself from the seat. Elyza’s eyes follow the path of her abdomen towards a tiny corner store. She knows the elder woman will follow her, and the sounds of a combat boot grinding out the cigarette, followed by footsteps that are almost careful (but not quite) bring a smirk onto the brunette’s features.

 

The first thing she notices is the fan still whirring in the corner. There are no walkers, somehow, strangely. She leans her bat against the edge of an aisle. Elyza sheathes her knife, but it remains sitting at her waist, just like always. Then something clicks in Alicia’s mind, and she turns, grinning.

“Power.”

Neither of them speak nor move for a long moment.

 

Then they’re rushing towards the freezer in the back corner. Miraculously, ridiculously, it hasn’t been picked clean.

 

“How in God's name does a shitty bloody _dairy_ still have power? This is the apocalypse.”

Alicia doesn’t ask, and wants to laugh at how thick Elyza’s accent get when she’s shocked, but all she can think about is the fact that there’s ice cream - real, and still frozen, and she’s going to be able to eat it.

The taste of chocolate lingers on her tongue long after she’s shovelled half a pint of the stuff into her mouth, and there’s some stuck on her lip and drying on her chin, but it’s something so normal, something so removed from this world, and neither woman speaks for a while. The only sounds are laughter and swallowing and plastic spoons scraping the sides of tubs, and then just the whirring of the fan.

 

Alicia perches herself atop the freezer and watches Elyza.

Elyza’s gaze rakes over her form once, twice, three times, from her converse-clad feet to the plaid-bikini combo of her torso.

 

It’s summer, and it’s hot - so _damn_ hot - and when the blonde crosses the aisle in one stride and settles herself between Alicia’s legs, torsos mere inches apart, the teen finally thinks that maybe they’ve made it somewhere, and forces her breath not to catch too audibly in her throat. Elyza’s hands are sticky with sugar and sweat when they sneak inside her open shirt and anchor on either side of her ribcage.

Alicia stares into the blue of her eyes and wonders of the sky.

 

Elyza’s lips are chapped and rough and taste of cream and sugar and cigarette smoke and the clash should disgust her but doesn’t, and yeah, they’ve definitely made it _somewhere_ as Alicia’s hands snake into blonde hair and take hold, far too simple and far too comfortable. So what if she’s thought about doing it before - she’s a teenager, this is the apocalypse, and Elyza is fucking hot, mind you. She doesn’t know how long it lasts - time doesn’t matter, not really - before Elyza’s pulling back.

“What, no prototypical ‘we shouldn’t’? No young-adult-fiction tropes?” She breathes the question from just above Alicia, the sensation of breath brushing over kiss-bruised lips one she can’t say she hates.

The teen shuffles forwards until their hips bump and their chests are flush and she leans forward as though to tell the blonde a secret, lips brushing against her ear.

“Haven’t you heard? The gay girls always get shot in those.”

  
  
It’s summer, and it’s hot, and maybe she fucks an older woman in the back corner of a convenience store in the middle of the day, skin sticky with sweat and ice cream, but Alicia Clark is still a teenager, and for a while she’s happy and kiss drunk and the world returns to a place where ice-cream and mostly meaningless fucking are commonplace, and at the end of the day, isn’t that what they’re all trying to get back to?


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in the middle, in the chaos of darkness and the calm of night, they fall into one another.

It’s sometime between  _ Sweetheart _ turning to  _ Alicia _ turning to  _ Buttercup  _ turning to  _ Leesh  _ that the American girl realises there may be a problem (and it’s not just how the middle syllable of her name extenuates Elyza’s accent and how fucking hot it sounds, Alicia will have you know). Because Alicia’s always been the emotional type - she relies on people, she connects with them. She’s not clingy, not really. She just sucks at not getting attached, no matter what she might have convinced herself.

(She’s terrible at not falling in love, in short.)

 

Elyza picks up a shotgun from somewhere. Disapproval is written all over Madison’s face, but no one says anything as she attaches it to her bike. Travis nods somberly as she hands him a .44 Magnum. Daniel already has his own rifle.

Ofelia receives a gun Alicia can’t identify - but she can see there’s a silencer attached. She tries not to feel too much relief at that, but whispers a thank you into the exposed skin of Elyza’s neck when she settles into place behind her, lips not even an inch above a hickey she knows she left there only yesterday, and pretends not to feel Elyza’s shoulders straighten against her form.

Her mother’s gaze burns against her back as the bike roars into life between her legs, and Alicia lets it drown out the parts of the world that don’t involve her being draped over Elyza’s back, or the somehow still pleasant smell of her hair, or the excuse to pull herself just a little too close.

Elyza pretends not to notice any of this.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been too long since they last saw a horde, and peace shouldn’t be something that is feared and thick with tension, but it is, and there is silence shrouding them that night. Firelight dances and crackles over the intricate swirls and jagged lines of black ink that encircle Elyza’s arm. Alicia’s fingertips itch to trace them, even though she’s already got them memorized better than the maps of the surrounding areas Madison asked her to learn almost a week back. She could draw them out in her sleep.

She hasn’t drawn anything since the bloody mess of her tattoo.

 

She looks away just as Elyza begins to shuffle towards her, so caught up in her own thoughts that she doesn’t even hear her approach. She can feel the woman’s presence, though - something like a consciousness pressing against her own, or magnetic fields not sure whether to attract or repel.

Elyza presses a single finger against the inside of her wrist. “What’s up, Buttercup?” She tests.

Alicia turns back to her, gaze lingering on her hair, beaten gold and pale orange against the flames, her eyes as piercingly blue as ever. “C’mon, don’t tell me you’re scared  _ now _ .” Her voice is too soft to be a challenge, though, and Alicia pretends not to appreciate the comfort.

She raises a brow, and her smirk is so tired it could be a smile, (it is, it is, it is,) but Alicia leans into the space between them, just a little too comfortable, and if Elyza notices, she doesn’t say anything. “Projection, huh? That’s not going to help you come to terms with your terror.” She quips, and then yawns.

 

Elyza chuckles, and they fall into silence, and pretend not to stare at one another, and pretend not to notice the other staring back.

Somewhere in the middle, in the chaos of darkness and the calm of night, they fall into one another. Elyza’s back is pressed into her chest by the time Alicia speaks again, her arms cradling her waist, delicate, careful.

 

(The first time Alicia woke up holding her, Elyza was crying. She didn’t ask why, only hushed her and wiped away tears, and pretended not to wonder how long it had been since the woman had been the one supported, not the one supporting.)

 

“You think this is it?”

Elyza’s never been one for subtleties. “What d’you mean by _‘it’_?”

“All we get. Do you think there’s an end - a cure, or immunity; or is this all we get - a lifetime of killing dead things and praying we don’t have to end our loved ones’ lives in the morning?” Alicia’s thumb stripes along a bullet wound in Elyza’s hip.  _ Ex-military _ , she remembers.  _ SAS _ .

 

Gay girls always get shot. 

Better shot than bitten.

 

“No.” Honesty paints Elyza’s voice with an optimism Alicia had forgotten exists in this world. “There’s always something more. There’s always a greater ending than the one that seems inevitable. Maybe we get there, maybe we don’t. But it’s always possible. You have to believe it, is all.”

Alicia hums. “So, we hope?”

“And we care, and we fight.” Soft snores fill the open air around them, and Alicia can almost believe her - can almost picture that this isn’t a world populated by walking nightmares.

 

They are alone, and it’s nighttime, and Alicia feels like her soul is about to be bared and scrutinised and ridiculed for its flaws.

 

Elyza turns, and they’re face to face. It’s harder to pretend they’re not doomed, when the truths are written in their eyes and the lines of their faces and the turning at the corners of their lips.

It’s not just hypothetical anymore.

 

“I’m scared.” Her family is asleep, and her voice is little more than a whisper, but she might as well have screamed it into an abyss with the entire world watching on. Alicia Clark thrives on control. Fear is a lack of control.

She’s not even sure what she’s scared of.

Elyza’s eyes search her own. “Yeah.”

Her thumb touches the bullet wound again, her hand coming to rest, firm and gentle, on the bone just below it.

“Should I be?”

 

Yes, she thinks, you should be fucking terrified, but her breath is already mingling with Elyza’s on both of their lips, and she watches the blonde’s head shaking, and realizes there’s a hand cradling her jaw, and-

 

It’s so different, to kiss her when it means everything, than when it mostly-means-nothing. It’s a nudge of nose against nose, a shakily fearful breath, wide-eyes fluttering closed, a carefully chaste press of lip to lip, unsure and innocent and everything the fucking hasn’t been, and when she pulls back and sees Elyza staring at her with unabashed adoration and affection in her gaze, Alicia can’t remember even saying she was scared - can’t remember why, can’t remember the darkness of their situation.

She kisses her again, and again, and they’ve got all the time in the world and it still doesn’t feel like enough, and she whispers love into the blonde’s skin, and they still have so much to learn, but Alicia doesn’t think about anything other than the girl in her arms and on her lips, and the sweet mix of chocolate and cookie dough, and sun-baked skin, and the roaring of motorcycles, and the freedom of racing down empty highways. The calluses on their hands don’t seem so harsh, and freshly made scars seem insignificant compared to the way her chest tightens pleasantly with every other breath.

  
  
It’s summer, and it’s hot, and they’re still going east or west or north, or maybe even south, now, and Alicia is in love with this haphazard, addictive girl who cradles guns like lovers and whispers prayers over the bodies that are halfway to festering before she even puts bullets or knives into their brains, and somehow that is enough to keep the sharp edges and rusted nails of this world from tearing her open and leaving her to bleed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is pretty??? short??? I thought it was gonna be longer, i still don't know how i feel about it and i might do a rewrite tomorrow idk lmao, but yeah!!!! that was that!!!! lemme know what you think :)


End file.
